yanomamo

A detailed Summary of yanomamo

We know the world through a shared understanding of what is real and "natural". This socially constructed reality is a taken-for-granted reality. When we are confronted with a radically different reality, it can be a shocking experience. Sociologists use the term culture shock to refer to the way socially constructed reality can impact our mental and physical states.

An anthropologist by the name of Napoleon Chagnon traveled 3 days up the Orinoco River in Venezuela in search of a tribe by the name of the Yanomamo. The Yanomamo in villages scattered along the border of Venezuela and Brazil. He arrives at 2 p.m. in the afternoon with hot, humid, face and hands swollen from insect bites. His heart pound. Chagnon exits the boat, pushes his way through underbrush and:

"I looked up and gasped when I saw a dozen burly, naked, sweaty, hideous men staring at us down the shafts of their drawn arrows! Immense wads of green tobacco were stuck between their lower teeth and lips making them lo

Chagnon made many valuable observations about the Yanomamo, and was very intrigued by their culture. Social life is organized around those same principles utilized by all tribesmen: kinship relationships, descent from ancestors, marriage exchanges between kinship/descent groups, and the transient charisma of distinguished headmen who attempt to keep order in the village and whose responsibility it is to determine the village's relationships with those in other villages. Their positions are largely the result of kinship and marriage patterns--they come from the largest kinship groups within the village. They can, by their personal wit, wisdom, and charisma, become autocrats but most of them are largely "greaters" among equals. They, too, must clear gardens, plant crops, collect wild foods, and hunt. They are simultaneously peacemakers and valiant warriors. Peacemaking often requires the threat or actual use of force, and most headmen have an acquired reputation for being waiteri: fierce.

The Yano

Some common words found in the essay are:
Tropical Forest, Venezuela Brazil, Culture Shock, Chagnon Yanomamo, Chagnon Yamamamo, Yanomamo Chagnon, Yanomamo Yanomamo, Napoleon Chagnon, River Venezuela, culture shock, wild foods, socially constructed, socially constructed reality, constructed reality,

Approximate Word count = 677
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History

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yanomamo

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